1. Field of Invention
This invention is in the general field of casino gaming and, more particularly, is an apparatus that reduces a probability of cheating and increases rolls of dice per unit time in a crap game.
2. Description of the Prior Art
During a crap game in a casino, a die typically rolls off a dice table and onto a floor about ten times per hour. Prior to putting the die back into play, it is examined by a casino employee to verify that a highly visible identification number is on one face and a barely visible security marking is on another face.
It takes approximately thirty seconds to recover the die, check the identification number, check the security marking and put the die back in play. Therefore, during a single day approximately two hours of playing time is lost. The loss of the playing time results in a loss of revenue for the casino. Therefore, it is desirable to reduce the loss of the playing time as much as possible.
An undesirable aspect of the identification number and the security marking is that they are noticeable to anyone who handles the die. Therefore, the identification number and the security number can be used by a person to produce dice that could be surreptitiously introduced into the crap game. When the surreptitiously introduced dice have a weight imbalance, a user has a decisive advantage. In other words, the identification number and the security marking do not adequately prevent cheating in the crap game.
For reasons given hereinbefore, there is a need for providing a rapid means for putting the die back into play when it rolls of the table and for preventing cheating.
An object of the invention is to rapidly verify that a die used in a dice game has not been surreptitiously replaced.
According to one aspect of the present invention, a bar code strip with a printed coded representation of a verification character is connected to a face of a die. A scanner is operable to scan the face to verify the presence of the printed coded representation.
According to another aspect of the present invention, prior to shipment to a casino, the die is wrapped within a wrapper that has an inside surface with a numeric representation of the bar code thereon. When the wrapped die is received by the casino, a designated casino employee unwraps the die and enters the numeric representation into the scanner thereby enabling the use of the scanner to verify the presence of the bar code.
The invention increases time that a die is in play and reduces the probability of cheating in a dice game.
Other objects, features and advantages of the invention should be apparent from the following description of the preferred embodiment as illustrated in the accompanying drawing.